Silicon Roundabout Ventures, Community Updates Mar' 24
Silicon Roundabout Ventures, Community Updates Mar' 24
Our Community & Fund update, with fresh fund highlights, community events, and deeptech market insights. Written by our AI. Edited by our humans.
In this edition
Fundraising Milestone: We share the outcome of our public 30-day fundraising challenge, including the engagements and learnings from the journey.
London Event: Join us to meet Suzanne Heywood, COO of Exor, for insights into industrial business and her inspiring journey.
Portfolio Growth: Welcoming [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs] to the portfolio, advancing quantum networking infrastructure, alongside exciting developments from existing portfolio companies like Anaphite and [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs].
Market Insights: We cover the UK's space agency expansion, EU's AI Act, solar eclipse simulations, and the significant investment in defence drones.
A reminder of what we are about
Silicon Roundabout Ventures is a Super-Angel Seed fund in the UK investing in European Deep Tech startups. It leverages their community of 15,000 entrepreneurs and engineers, through which the team previously attracted, selected and helped launch 33 Deep Tech and Big Data startups now valued at over £6 Billion.
The fund is backed by top-tier VC Molten Ventures (LSE:GROW) and exited founders, engineers and execs: including ex googlers, amazonians and from 2 unicorns.
📅 Upcoming Events and Community Updates
From limited formal education to a place at Oxford and becoming COO of investment giant Exor, Chair of industrial groups Iveco and CNH ( NYSE: CNHI ), Bestselling Author, and one of the Most Influential Women in industrial business and automotive:
⚙️ 🍷 Come have a drink at our next event in London to meet our special guest!
🏭 Suzanne Heywood ─ COO at Exor NV and Chair of Iveco Group and CHH Industrial.
With a Net Asset Value of around €33 billion, Exor's portfolio includes companies in which Exor is the largest shareholder: Ferrari, Stellantis, CNH Industrial, Juventus FC, Iveco Group, The Economist, GEDI Gruppo Editoriale and SHANG XIA.
Of top relevance to the Deeptech community: after such a strong industrial pedigree, Exor launched and now heads both Exort Ventures and Lingotto. Both investing actively in frontier technologies across venture and growth.
Date and Location: April 11, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM, at 68-80 Hanbury St, London, England.
🚀 Event Highlights: Berlin Dinner
Our LP-only gathering in Berlin was attend by 8 LPs, hosted by Francesco, Philip Jungen (current LP), and LP superstar Tilo Bonow, who was not an LP before the event, but is now!
Fund rundown
New investments since last update: 1
Total Portfolio Companies: 8
Fund: 1
Vintage: 2023
Top-of-the-funnel Pipeline: 5
Key Deeptech Areas: Computing, Climate, and National Security Infrastructure
Markups
No markup since the last update, however Anaphite closed a convertible pre-A round, as well as securing grant funding. Other announced recipients of equity-free investment in our portfolio included Archangel Lightworks and [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs].
Anaphite and Greenjets are currently discussing terms for an upcoming priced round. Series A and Seed respectively.
Performance Snapshot
Here is each fund’s performance to date. These numbers are taken directly from Vauban’s back office and represent our ownership position based on the most recent priced rounds, including any down rounds to better represent the current market value.
Note: We do not book non-priced rounds as markups.
Silicon Roundabout Ventures LP Fund 1
Vintage: 2023
Status: Open for new LPs (via equalisation)
Fund Min. Target Size (Soft Cap): £5M
Currently invested: [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
First closing: Dec 2022
TVPI: n/a
DPI: n/a
Net IRR: n/a
MOIC: [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
Most Valuable Positions: n/a
Investments: 8
Target Pipeline Closing soon: 5
GP’s Angel Portfolio + 4 “Fund 0” SPVs
Vintage: 2020 (H2)
Investments: 15
TVPI: 1.1X
DPI: n/a
Highlight Companies: Ori.co, Aegieq.com, Kaizan.ai, Nanusens.com, rnwl.co.uk, Ecosync, Axiom.ai
Status: closed
Community “Virtual” Portfolio
Vintage: 2016
Companies considered: 26
Method for selection: Silicon Roundabout community pitch winners until the beginning of the GP investment activity
Assumed “virtual” investment: £200,000 cheque into each company; No follow-on
Simulated TVPI: 6-6.9X
Simulated Most Valuable Positions: 50-58X
Notable companies: Monzo, Zego, BlueVision Labs, Sano Genetics, Admix, Humanising Autonomy, CausaLens, iProov, Proximie, Senseon, VividQ
Portfolio
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]* is a snapshot of the current portfolio.
*Link to a private Airtable base with a list of all portfolio companies and include the company’s name, short description, why we invested, URL, and category.
➕ New Additions
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
Co-investment Opportunities
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
🚀 Portfolio Updates
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
In Q1 2024 [REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs] focused on getting a commercial agreement with one of the hospitals over the line, which was successful. In addition, the last few funds are preparing for the final commitments to the company's round.
Greenjets
Their first board meeting of 2024 included Francesco as an observer, invited by founder Anmol. The company is nearing the closure of a $2 million contract for utilizing their engines in drones intended for deployment on the Ukrainian front.
While their funding round is oversubscribed, Greenjets is in search of a lead investor who can not only value the company but also contribute additional value beyond capital. Interest from six funds has been expressed, with potential investors hailing from the UK, Germany, India, and Portugal.
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
[REDACTED: ONLY FOR LPs]
The Deeptech Lowdown (Market update)
Welcome to our Deeptech & VC market review with our top picks articles from our GP’s reads! 🤓
This month key highlights:
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has announced an expansion plan that includes the opening of four new bases across the UK, along with a new headquarters. This move aims to bolster the UK's presence in the global space sector and enhance its scientific and commercial capabilities.
The EU's AI Act is a comprehensive legislation aimed at regulating artificial intelligence technologies. Businesses within and outside the EU dealing with AI need to familiarise themselves with the new requirements to ensure compliance.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching an ambitious project to simulate solar eclipses in space with the Proba-3 mission, aiming to study the Sun's corona by creating artificial eclipses.
The UK has launched a comprehensive Defence Drone Strategy, offering a unified approach to enhance the military's capabilities with uncrewed systems across air, sea, and land with a major investment of £4.5 billion over the next decade. This strategy is designed to rapidly equip the British Armed Forces with cutting-edge drone technology while fostering innovation and collaboration with industry partners. This highlights our portfolio company Greenjets who are fulfilling a strong current need for better, quieter, faster and more efficient UAVs for defence use (which is also highlighted by their closing of commercial contracts in both defence and commercial applications)
The journey into advanced artificial intelligence (AI) is pushing the boundaries of technology and budget. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a monumental leap in AI capabilities, came with a staggering $100 million training cost. This financial heft underscores a dire need for innovation not just in AI's software sphere but fundamentally in computing hardware, urging a paradigm shift as profound as the inception of the transistor microchip.
GP Personal Updates
Just closed the chapter on our 30-day "build in public" VC saga:
Clinched £1m from operator LPs and weaving through a promising £3.74m from ongoing dialogues, despite a slide with £2.3m slipping through our fingers. 🌪️
Our hottest post soared to 24k impressions, with the quieter ones sitting at 2k. Kicked off targeting 40 LP pitches, but thanks to a mix of referrals and campaign buzz, nailed exactly 60. 🎯
Now, it's full steam ahead into herding these prospects and pivoting back to the investment grind. Now I'm all ears for your input: What move should we make next on our Build-in-Public journey?
Find out more data points and join the chat on the LinkedIn post where I announced all this: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fperticarari_lp-vc-startup-activity-7181642481875251201-fYIS